


things i have loved i'm allowed to keep

by riverbed



Series: rhapsodies [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: A little bit of blood, Fluff, Injury, Intimacy, M/M, Shaving, Straight Razors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6393214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverbed/pseuds/riverbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>shrapnel of war shot through with wild blinding moments of tender domesticity</p><p>//some of the bulbs never opened quite fully</p>
            </blockquote>





	things i have loved i'm allowed to keep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fullmetalpetticoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmetalpetticoat/gifts).



> this exists as an additonal piece of [notes on a composition in progress](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5628874/chapters/12965704). it's a slice of life type thing, just something because i missed writing that story
> 
> it is for fullmetalpetticoat as all things in this universe exist only as altar offerings to her. i have to go to sleep now
> 
> //[i'm waiting and staying awake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO5evGShbmU)

“John would have never done this for me,” Hamilton says, wide brown eyes boring up into Lafayette’s own.

“John was less reckless than I,” Lafayette says idly, pushing hair back from Alexander’s face and grasping more of it at his crown to encourage a tilt to his head. Alexander smiles in response. He is leaning back in a wooden chair beneath him, shoulders back and posture open but neck extended and tensed, chin pushed out toward Lafayette. For his part, Gilbert is bent at the waist to get a good look at the wet warmed skin of Alexander’s throat, knee up on the chair next to Alex with a strop draped across his thigh.

Lafayette flicks the razor from its handle, pivot mechanism working with a sharp metallic click as it reaches the drop. Alexander pulls a face at him, scrunches his face up. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asks. Lafayette mock-sighs. “So _fussy,”_ he laments, but he flips the blade back in and dips a boar’s hair brush into the bowl of soap anyway.

Alexander sighs and stretches back as Lafayette lays the brush against his jaw, painting the skin he had previously soaked with a warm towel in a rich lather. The soap is imported - by Lafayette himself, in fact, one of his few essentials; he loves the scent of it, exotic, spice layered on a base of perfume that somehow smells like whipping cream, fresh, warm vanilla. Sweet with bite. It reminds him of his Alexander. His Alexander, who lies catlike beneath him, open and vulnerable, his guard down only for him in their private world - curtains drawn but the morning light bright with sunshine pouring onto the dark wood of the floor, across Alexander’s body, casting a glow upon the rich blend of tones in his skin.

Alexander doesn’t react this time when Lafayette flips out the blade, and he lays it broadside on his jawline, rotating it until the edge presses against him. His grip is sure; he exerts only the bare minimum pressure. He knows exactly what he’s doing; his own beard grows quickly, much more readily than Hamilton’s shy scruff, and he has to shave every day. It’s more of a pain than anything else, but Alex is fascinated by it, hovering behind him in the mirror each morning, and after their rising this particular day he’d scratched at his chin and tugged at Lafayette’s loose tunic and nosed at his neck after he’d finished, breathed his scent in deeply and then kissed him breathless, and Lafayette would have done just about anything. Shaving him seemed an obvious favor. Just as always, he’s completely at a loss around Hamilton, succumbing immediately to any slight force of charm he applies.

He knows it. Hamilton loves the power he has here, lavishes in it. Under Lafayette’s blade he is so clearly in control, eyes closed and grinning, pleased with himself as ever. A pleasant shock runs through Lafayette at the realization that it’s the same smile he’d seen before dear Laurens had been lost.

He drags the razor down the underside of Alex’s chin in one smooth motion, and Alex’s throat flutters under it. Lafayette shifts, getting at the other side of his face, blade working quick and steady to shave him till the stubble prickles only slightly. He then presses his wet cloth against his skin and applies more soap, shaving against the growth to smooth it out completely. At a certain point Alex opens his eyes and starts staring, and Lafayette’s own gaze drifts from his work to stare back, and then the blade slips just a bit to the side and Alex gasps, gripping the sides of the chair white-knuckled and trying not to thrash further onto the knife. It all happens so fast, Lafayette yanking his arm back dramatically, dropping to his knees in front of Hamilton, straight razor with its delicate pearl handle clattering carelessly to the floor.

 _“Shit!”_ Lafayette says it in English, emphatic, loud. Presses two fingers hard against the cut and feels the hot blood trickling against him. And it’s not so bad, really, not even close to the severity of some of the nicks he’s given himself, but he’s hurt _Alexander_ and there are not words for the guilt, for the bright violent red of remorse -

Alexander drops his chin down, nudges Lafayette’s hand and kisses the inside of his wrist, down his palm, then reaches out to grasp his other hand and bring them both to his face, letting them drape over his own smaller ones and laying his lips against the knuckles, eyes on Lafayette the whole time, staring him down, settling him. Ironic, that he’s the one dealing with this better, Lafayette supposes, but he takes the comfort since it’s offered.

Eventually he stills his shaking hands enough to brush his knuckles against Alexander’s cheek, reaching past him to clamber for the witch hazel water on the surface of the vanity. Alex watches him closely as he dabs some onto his fingertips from the bottle, then tilts his head back and hisses quietly as presses those fingers back against the cut on his neck.

Eventually the sting subsides and Lafayette gets back on his feet, takes the cooled towel and starts dabbing away excess shave cream, Alexander shivering at the chilled touch and stretching his arms back above him, teetering the rickety chair dangerously as Lafayette fights the pull of gravity to the other side with his foot on the base bars. He chastises Alexander, clicks his tongue and Alexander is back to grinning, this time a challenge, an invitation.

Lafayette flashes him his most blinding smile, masking his residual panic as best he can. This all feels off all over again; he’s still struggling with the concept of the little hole they’ve burrowed for themselves in this inn, still is not totally comfortable with the idea of hiding away.

But he also has letters under the mattress, letters to Alexander that he hasn’t sent, and he tries to remember the nights he’d put them there, evenings when he imagined he’d felt like Alexander must at times, when fits of passion or anxiety spurred him on, frenetic, uncatchable energy compelling him to write, just _write._ Scribbling exaltations next to Alexander as he slept and ending up with manuscripts he hadn’t known what to do with, so he’d shoved them in the nooks and crannies of their hotel room, hidden them - from what, he doesn’t know - and he thinks maybe that’s the same as making someplace home.

And it feels like home when Alex kisses the corner of his mouth, stands over him and bends down to press his nose into his soft curls. He is scrawny and they’re both scarred and together they make something less than functional by definition, but they’re at the eye of a storm, the building of a nation, the verge of a new world, and he supposes there have been stranger things, more destructive things. Certainly things more dangerous than this, the utterly domestic atmosphere of the sunlight silhouetting Hamilton in an angelic glow and the clean scent of soap and the drop of copper blood still clinging onto Alexander’s collarbone.


End file.
